Weeks of commemorations for 70th anniversary of Warsaw ghetto uprising get under way

WARSAW, Poland – A month of commemorative events marking the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising has begun, with a communal cleaning of a Jewish cemetery and a religious ritual at a new Jewish history museum.

The key event will be a ceremony Friday led by President Bronislaw Komorowski remembering the hundreds of Jewish fighters who fought the Nazis in 1943 in their doomed revolt.

City residents turned out Sunday to help clean the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, answering a call by Polish authorities to get involved in remembering the Jewish tragedy.

Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, also unveiled a mezuzah at the entrance of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opens Friday. A mezuzah is parchment with Hebrew scripture contained in a decorative case.